Southern Han

Southern Han (Traditional Chinese: 南漢; Simplified Chinese: 南汉; pinyin: Nánhàn) was a kingdom that existed during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960) along China’s southern coast from 917 to 971. Not only did it have interaction with other Chinese kingdoms, but due to its location, it also had relations with the relatively advanced Viet people to the south.

Founding of the Southern Han

Liu Yin, was named regional governor by the Tang court in 905. Though the Tang fell two years later, Liu did not declare himself the founder of a new kingdom as other southern leaders had done. He merely declared himself the Prince of Nanping in 909It was not until Liu Yin’s death in 917 that his son, Liu Yan, declared the founding of a new kingdom, which he initially called “Great Yue”, but then changed the name to “Southern Han” in 919.

Territorial Extant

With its capital at Canton (called Guangzhou in Mandarin), the domains of the kingdom spread along the coastal regions of present-day Guangdong and Guangxi. It not only had borders with the kingdoms of Min, Chu and the Southern Tang, they also bordered the non-Chinese kingdoms of Dali and Vietnam. The Southern Tang occupied all of the northern boundary of the Southern Han after Min and Chu were conquered by the Southern Tang in 945 and 951 respectively.

Relations with Vietnam

While the Tang Dynasty was strong, Vietnam was a stable, secure part of the Chinese domains. However, as the Tang Dynasty was weakening late in the ninth century, the Vietnamese sought to regain control over their own affairs. Hanoi, which had developed as a political center during the Tang Dynasty, became the center of an early Vietnamese polity.The Southern Han sought to bring the Vietnamese back within the Chinese orbit in 939, but even though the Vietnamese were still relatively unorganized politically, the invasion was unsuccessful and was repelled. As the Vietnamese became more politically organized from the 960s, the Southern Han were no longer able to threaten their southern neighbors.

Fall of the Southern Han

The Five Dynasties ended in 960 when the Song Dynasty was founded to replace the Later Zhou Dynasty. From that point, the new Song rulers set themselves about to continue the reunification process set in motion by the Later Zhou Dynasty. Through the 960s and 970s, the Song increased its influence in the south until finally it was able to force the Southern Han dynasty to submit to its rule in 971.

Rulers

References

Mote, F.W. (1999). Imperial China (900-1800). Harvard University Press, 11, 15. ISBN 0674012127.

(1999) Tarling, Nicholas: The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (Volume One, Part One): From early times to c. 1500. Cambridge University Press, 139. ISBN 0521663695.

Weblinks

chinaknowledge.de: Southern Han

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